Is it just me, or did anyone else think this was a news item about a group of native Canadians using bitcoins instead of Canadian dollars? :-)

I'm going to go with Somalia. Apparently Somalia has the best mobile telephone system in Africa, and I can see bitcoin catching on there first. I don't think it'll be good for PR, but it'll be interesting.

Edit: and now that I've seen the results: Switzerland? Really?! The countries with major currencies will be the last to surrender. To my mind, that rules out Switzerland, the UK, the US, and every country in the Euro-zone (I suspect that they might want to dump the Euro, but I equally suspect that they may not have much of a choice...) (Also: Japan, Canada, Australia and New Zealand).

Is it just me, or did anyone else think this was a news item about a group of native Canadians using bitcoins instead of Canadian dollars? :-)

I'm going to go with Somalia. Apparently Somalia has the best mobile telephone system in Africa, and I can see bitcoin catching on there first. I don't think it'll be good for PR, but it'll be interesting.

Edit: and now that I've seen the results: Switzerland? Really?! The countries with major currencies will be the last to surrender. To my mind, that rules out Switzerland, the UK, the US, and every country in the Euro-zone (I suspect that they might want to dump the Euro, but I equally suspect that they may not have much of a choice...) (Also: Japan, Canada, Australia and New Zealand).

Note it says official reserves, but it doesn't say exclusive reserves - i.e. the first country to start strategically hoarding bitcoins, regardless of what other currencies and commodities they may also hoard. I don't think it's any less likely that would be a country with a major currency.

Edit: and now that I've seen the results: Switzerland? Really?! The countries with major currencies will be the last to surrender. To my mind, that rules out Switzerland, the UK, the US, and every country in the Euro-zone (I suspect that they might want to dump the Euro, but I equally suspect that they may not have much of a choice...) (Also: Japan, Canada, Australia and New Zealand).

Note it says official reserves, but it doesn't say exclusive reserves - i.e. the first country to start strategically hoarding bitcoins, regardless of what other currencies and commodities they may also hoard. I don't think it's any less likely that would be a country with a major currency.

My thinking is that the countries with major reserve currencies are a club, and won't want to antagonise other members of the club. If the UK, say, started holding bitcoins alongside CHF and USD, Switzerland and the US might be less inclined to hold GBP in their reserves.

However... a mass sell off of GBP could be what the UK government wants, as it'll improve the UK balance of trade. I guess I don't know, I just tend to regard the major reserve currency states are fairly conservative. My money's still on Somalia! :-)

Anyhow, I don't think it will be Switzerland because the Swiss, especially the ones working for government, tend to be very old-fashioned and set in their ways. They are not exactly on top of the latest technological developments and they are really slow to take up any manner of change.

One example: I always amazes me how the authorities here still refuse to recognise email as means of communication, 15 years after email has gone mainstream. Even for the most trivial messages they insist on sending snail mail letters, which means that communications that could be resolved in days can drag on for months. The Swiss government taking up something as whacky as Bitcoin? I don't see it happening. Like most things they will start doing it 10 years after everyone else.